In northern Iraq, a U.S.-style university with bold plans to attract the country's top talent has quickly found a following among young Iraqis. The American University in Iraq, which threw open its doors to students last January, has seen its enrollment soar almost sixfold in its second academic year.

A suicide bomber drove his truck into a police station north of Baghdad on Monday, crumbling the squat concrete building and damaging a nearby school in the deadliest in a series of blasts that killed at least 24 people across Iraq.

Iraq's most senior Sunni politician issued a desperate appeal Sunday for Arab nations to help stop what he called an "unprecedented genocide campaign" by Shiite militias armed, trained and controlled by Iran. The U.S. military reported five American soldiers were killed, apparently lured into an al-Qaida trap.

Iraq's most senior Sunni politician issued a desperate appeal for Arab nations to help stop what he called an "unprecedented genocide campaign" by Shiite militias armed, trained and controlled by Iran.

The five Cabinet ministers loyal to Iraq's first post-Saddam leader will boycott government meetings, further deepening the political crisis that threatens to swamp the administration of Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki, two lawmakers said Monday.

Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki on Friday ordered pension payments for senior officers of Saddam Hussein's military and offered a return to service for lower-ranking soldiers, a major step aimed at defusing the Sunni insurgency and meeting U.S. benchmarks for his government.

Iraq's government has endorsed plans to relocate thousands of Arabs who were moved to Kirkuk as part of Saddam Hussein's campaign to force ethnic Kurds out of the oil-rich city, in an effort to undo one of the former dictator's most enduring and hated policies.

A suicide car bomber shattered a relative lull in Baghdad's violence Monday, killing at least 28 people in a blast that touched off raging fires and a blizzard of bloodstained paper from a popular book market.